What is it about a hobby that can sort of take over your life for periods of time?
It's all about fountain pens and paper around here right now.
Though the love of pens and paper is not exactly new to me, I have been entranced these things ever since the day in the Ben Franklin 5 and 10 cent store when I was probably five years old.
They used to have these awesome tables with little wooden partitioned sections. The small toys were not individually packaged, they were piled in the sections. All kinds of things. Little rubber balls, toy trucks, tiny plastic dolls in their underwear, needing you to make an outfit for them, tiny coloring books... pencils, wind-up toys, you name it. Well, one day when my mother was standing in line to check out, I wandered over there and found the most magical thing on the whole table. A small tablet of the cheapest imaginable paper... but my friends, it had at least four different colors! I was enchanted by that thing! You must remember, back in the 50's no one had even THOUGHT about the beautiful paper craft products we have available to us now. This rainbow tablet was, to my five-year-old eyes, the very cutting edge of awesome! I cannot remember if I got to take that thing home or not.
Well, the fascination hasn't waned. And now a days, the dizzying array of what's available, and my disposable income have both improved. Now my challenge is to exercise some kind of self-control, or else I'll by the whole SHELF at Barnes and Noble. Then I'll have to deal with the anxiety that ensues when I have too much stuff!
(Oh, you poor thing. 🙄🥴)
I KNOW!
Anyway. Here we are in 2024 and I'm having an existential crisis because I can't decide on what notebook or journal filled with what type of paper to use for my 2025 diary.
(Steve might suggest you write in here. Just a thought.. you know...)
Well, I DO! And I'm grateful for this whole wonderful thing we do here. But my old-fashioned self needs the comfort and creativity of pen and paper. I want BOTH the digital and the analog. 💗
I thought I would illustrate my dilemma with this photo.... which does not by the way, include at least two more contenders for Miss Diary 2025.
(OMG. You are making me nauseous.)
Then look away.... my cranky friend, look away.
Samples of Archer and Olive, Sanzen, Tomoe River, Utoka, and Iroful papers, in and out of notebooks. Not shown are the Eccolo and Paperblanks notebooks that have fallen off as contenders in the last few days.
(You should write this year's diary in a one dollar composition book as penance for obscene over consumption.)
You should mind your own beeswax. I'm having a crisis here. Be serious.
(I was never more serious in my life.)
Me either! 😧
